Dragoon Gear Question.

Hey guys,
I'm sitting here tossed up right now, not sure whether I should be dropping Drakesbanes in a Forager's Mantle or a Cuchu Mantle.
The Str +3 & Attack +15 vs the Dex/Str+4 Acc+5

I have the mantle to TP in, but do you think it would outplay foragers when using Drakes?

Also, Askar Head vs Walahra Turban for Drg.

Right now I only have 13% haste not using Walahra,
working on Homam right now.

Is it worth it to get the blitz ring and use walahra?
Sacrifing Str/Dex/Vit +4 and Acc/Attk+4 on the two slots for an extra 2% haste?

Thanks for your time.

Post the rest of your gear, TP and WS.

EDIT: I can tell you now that Turban will beat Askar in any reasonable situation for DPS on DRG, but the other questions are situational. As a general rule Blitz is the way to go for your second ring, but you're only working on Homam so you may not have the accuracy for it just yet. Forager's v Cuchu depends on hitrate and dDEX.

if you post your gear set you'll be able to get more accurate advice, and as fyre said turban beats askar in almost all situation, only exception in which it would be reverse is in very high evasion situation and its still iffy. And as he said for cuch mantle, it can beat foragers but it will have to push your total dex to 117+. And as for blitz if you have high hit rate, say 90%+, blitz may do you better than an acc ring

I already did all the math for you regarding haste and accuracy in game yesterday man. Going around for second opinions? I am hurt.

WS: Oathkeeper Delay 497 DMG 99 (Pole grip)
Champion's Galea ( Acc +10 Wsacc+15 Str +4 attack +5)
Flame Gorget
Brutal/Ethereal Earring
Zahak's Mail
Drachen Finger Gauntlet's +1
Rajas/Ulthalam's Ring
Forager's Mantle
Warwolf Belt
Askar Dirs
Askar Gambieras

TP: Oathkeeper (pole grip)
Askar Zucchetto/Walahra Turban
Chivalrous Chain (Love Torque in a couple days)
Ethereal/Brutal earring
Askar Korazin
Dusk Gloves (Attack +1 augment)
Rajas/Ulthalam's Ring (Blitz)
Cuchulain's Mantle
Swift Belt
Conte Cosciales/Askar Dirs
Dusk Ledelsens

As you can see there is some work to be done, I can easily improve any area, I'm just not sure what to aim for.

@ Excelior;
You know I love you, but I need multiple opinions before I take one from the biggest douchebag ever :D

What did you augment your Blitzer Poleyn with?

You don't have the acc for Blitz Ring, at least at merits. Elsewhere, situationally yes. You don't have the DEX for Cuch nor a need for the acc with your current augment set - to be honest you could change your Galea to STR/WSDMG, swap Ulth for Flame, and still be at around your target value assuming you're Hume/Taru/Galka.

I upgraded blitzer with Physical -4% Movement +8% for shits and giggles.

As for the Galea, 2% wsdmg isnt real worth it dont you think ? I mean with only 2% thats nothing, thats 20 extra points of dmg on a 1000 dmg weaponskill.
So to me that seemed useless.
I figured stick with acc and some str, and have it er'

Swappng Ulthalum's for flame, yeah that's easy, my question to you is, mentioning not having the dex/acc for certain pieces. Once I fit in my homam legs/feet/hands for tp by then I should be fine ? exempting any food I might use.
My parser's when meriting for 5 hours shows a 94% hit rate, without any acc buffs.
So personally I feel like I'm doing okay, but the homam will be a nice addition.
Any other tips you can fire my way?
Like I said, getting the gear I need is no problem, money is not an issue, so I can set up whatever need be.

You're asking me whether to use Cuch or Forager's on WS but you don't care about a 2% difference in the head slot... not sure how to interpret this.
Yeah, once you have Homam and Love Torque you'll be fine.
282+22+10+5+4+8+3+8 (Askar legs) +(65+5)*.75=394.5 accuracy, or a ~92% hitrate on the level 81 Greater Colibri (~89% on the 82 ones). Don't think I missed anything.
Assault Earring and Astrolabe would be two other small improvements that spring to mind right off hand, Tiphia til Astrolabe if you like. BTath is top dog but expensive.

I have a question regarding that MKD helm. If I had it I'd get (STR +4 WS ACC +15) and one of the other mods. Let's assume I use Drakesbane exclusively. In the following cases, which would outperform (WS Damage +2%) mod, if any:

1. Well below the DEX needed to cap crits on monster.
2. Within the range of capping crits on monster.
3. Above the DEX needed to cap crits on monster.

It's obvious that I'm mainly considering the (DEX +4 Crit hit damage +2%) mod as well. Just wondering which one would outperform which? Or would you say they're about equal when only using Drakesbane.

Thanks.

I don't care about the 2% on my head piece when it means I have to sacrifice 15acc on my ws. 20 dmg per 1000dmg vs 15acc isn't really a hard choice. Different story if you're a samurai with overwhelm capped, etc. I know you understand what I am saying, and are maybe just trying to *** me around lol.

I understand everything else, and I guess I failed to mention I do have a Btath. But my question is, why an assault earring? and in what instances would I use that?

EDIT: Regarding the augments on my Galea, whether it be the Acc15 or Acc10 based on choice, I still feel that it would be a loss to go for 2$wsdmg when I only have 2%.

AGI/WSDMG is going to beat DEX/CRITDMG across the board simply because it works on every hit rather than only the ones that crit. They're equal on any hit that crits and depending on dDEX the DEX+4 option might increase the frequency of crits, but all it takes is one hit not critting and the WSDMG augment pulls ahead.

EDIT: It's 10 acc, not 15, and it's 10 acc that you're not using. For all intents and purposes you have a Galea with STR+4 WSACC+15 attack+5. BTath bumps your hitrate up 2% from my given numbers.

EDIT2: Assault Earring is acc+2 attack+5. If you need the acc it's best in slot other than Hollow (which you obviously don't have), otherwise I'd suggest picking up Aesir and using that over Ethereal when not soloing.

So the 10acc I have on my helm has no effect on my Drakesbane? Only the 15wsacc? So it's not actually +25acc?

Cause if that's true, then *** everyone who told me otherwise. That's rather annoying if that's true, cause if so, I take my 2%wsdmg comment back, and now I look like a fool.

Also, just curious as to where youre getting the math for the accuracy equation.

Hmm, but the WSDMG augment will never improve my chance for critical hits, which on a WS like Drakesbane is pretty substantial. Even if I land 1 more crit per 5 WSes(100 damage with the WSDMG augment), I think it'd make up the damage. Which is why I asked for each scenerio of DEX below, approaching, and above the cap for monster crits.

Stupid quotes.

@Alzeroth: If you're capping accuracy without the +10 then it's not doing anything and it's a waste of an augment.

And how am I supposed to know whether I am capping accuracy or not?
Thanks for the stupid answer, since it had nothing to do with my question.

They're half right. If acc is uncapped then yeah, it applies - but after swapping Ulth for Flame you're looking at the following:

skill provides 1 acc for the first 200 and 0.9 after that. This gives you 92*0.9+200=282 acc

DRG gets 22 acc natively, add another 10 for Hasso, then 25 head, 10 neck, 4 ammo, 5 legs

Finally, you have 65 base DEX and another 30 in gear. Dex contributes acc at a 4:3 rate on 2handed DDs.

282+22+10+25+10+4+5+(65+30)*0.75=429 acc, which is way above the amount you'd need on damn near anything after accounting for the use of food as appropriate. Your target goal for your TP set by comparison is ~400 acc without food. I pretty much always add Hasso here since I generally go /SAM for events on DRG, but for things like Xarcabard where I'd definitely consider /NIN I'd still be fine with pizza so it's irrelevant. That may vary for you, but I doubt it would vary by much; you'll gain more by augmenting for the more common situation than the exceptions.

EDIT: http://www.mattrocks.net/matt/ffxi/other/endgame%20accuracy%20in%20merit.txt for merit level targets and you can parse the rest with a little effort. It's very rare that something requires more than 450 acc to cap, so pizza covers nearly everything where you'd need more than 400 acc.

Sorry, my first response to this was a massive and embarrasing brain fart. I'll knock out some rough values later. It's important to note that even if dDEX is uncapped the DEX may not improve your critrate. The only time I'd reasonably expect the DEX/crit augment to have a shot at being superior is birds; DRG simply doesn't get the kind of DEX options needed to push high dDEX elsewhere.

Okay you've been very helpful and I really appreciate it, one final question to you would be, After seeing what I currently have, what food do you reccomend in most situations, and should I decide remake my Galea, what augments do you reccomend?

Thanks again for your time.

As far as the acc, I'm guessing a bit here, but...
Polearm skill + acc from gear + ((DEX+DEX from gear)*.75 (3/4 modifier) )

Capped acc is something like 411, and the "rule of thumb" when calculating this way is 1 acc = .5% hit rate.

Been a while since I went that way. Miruan's ftw :)

Edit: and hurray for taking too long to reply.

Well yeah, I guess I should have considered adding 8/8 polearm into the equation.

Thanks. :D

Yeah, I don't have much R/Ex gear for DRG just yet, so I have a good feeling I'm well below the crit-rate cap on any worthwhile mob. I'll probably end up going for WSDMG mod anyway since I'd use other WSes. I'm one of those whitebox people who just hate seeing AGI mod on my helm when I make no use of it in anyway. :P

As a general rule: meat for merits (assuming birds, you're a DRG after all), most of Limbus (unsure for Ultima/Omega), non-Xarc/Tav Dynamis; pizza for Xarc/Tav, Sky gods, Jailers, ZNMs, higher tier VNMs, Einherjar (though Odin dispels food... need ~450 acc to cap on him, use judgement based on buffs), and any HNM-ish mob where you're using Drakesbane and/or engaged fulltime.

I'd definitely go for STR/WSDMG on the Galea; it performs well everywhere and even once you get a stronger max damage option it will still have use if you need accuracy.

Glad to help!

Thanks again man, really appreciate the time you took to help me out. Hopefully I'll hear from you again soon when I'm stuck in a rut.

Have a good one.

22 and 10 are acc bonus and Hasso, respectively; I combined DEX and acc on a couple pieces with DEX+4 but otherwise you're dead on. 407 acc caps on the higher level Colibri, 401 for the level 81 ones. Anything in the 400-407 range is generally deemed a pretty good target value; there's more to the game than birds after all.

TP:


WS:


Augments: Galea is 6STR, 15WSAcc; Coselete is 10 Atk, 10 Acc; Poleyn are 3 Haste, 7 Accuracy.

I've got SAM75 that uses all 3 of those as well - those augments probably won't be changing.


Since there's already a topic here, figured I may as well throw my question in here. FFCalc gives capped accuracy on 82 birds (411.5) with both setups with Hasso up. I've got Drakesbane, and a 6hit build. What should I be focusing on as far as WS builds, since my Drakesbanes are pretty... Lame. Gil is kind of an issue, but I'm more than willing to listen to *any* suggestions.

Also, OP, sorry for hijacking your thread~ it seemed like your question was answered already. If you want, I can move this to its own thread :)

WSDMG beats 2 STR for both DRG and SAM, so you *might* wanna fix that one. Just saying. Hecatomb Leggings, Askar or Aurum legs, Flame Gorget.

Drakesbane is at its best when you can push a high critrate, so improvements to your build with an eye towards building DEX as well will help.

Already workin on Askar legs, trying to farm up the crap for my gorgets for all my jobs. WSDMG+2% would really beat the extra STR for both jobs? Good to know. Thankfully MKD was the easiest finale for me to do :D

Heca Feet are eeesh right now, no Sky shell, but definitely trying to get em. Would it be worth picking up Heca body from Kirin or just save up the gil and nab a Zahak's Mail (Especially considering I've got WAR on the way up?)

Thanks for the help already :D